http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/ukraine-1-yanukovichs-end-is-a-beginning/
Q. Some people in the western left focus on the right wing and fascists; others seem to ignore them completely. Why? A. This is more about the western left, and the stereotypes it is so often satisfied with, than about what is going on in Ukraine. People who see the world in terms of a geopolitical battle between the USA and NATO on one side, and Russia, among others, on the other side, look at Ukraine as a chess piece in this conflict. To them, what is most important is not the development of social and labour movements – in Ukraine, Russia or anywhere else – but which side Ukraine takes in this battle (the west vs Russia). They can not get their heads round the idea of middle class or working class Ukrainians seeing positives in Europe, as opposed to Russia. The answer, they are convinced, must be that Maidan can not be a mass movement in which right wing populists and fascists have gained influence, and therefore it must be a movement inspired by the right, supported materially and ideologically by the USA. An especially crude version of this view is here. (“In an attempt to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence, the US-EU-NATO alliance has, not for the first time, allied itself with fascists”, etc.) Some of these presumptions were reflected, too, in Seumas Milne’s article in the Guardian here. On the other side are social democratic supporters of the European ideal, whatever that means to them. They believe that their job is to help bring Ukraine into the European capitalist fold. This meant turning a blind eye to, or playing down, the right wing and fascists’ violence, and emphasising that Maidan is pro-European and therefore inherently progressive. Variants of such views are effectively challenged by Volodymyr Ishchenko of the journal Spil’ne here and here. There is a great deal of history running through these arguments. I was depressed to see, on Maidan, flags and symbols of the wartime Ukrainian Resistance Army (UPA), some of whose leaders collaborated with the Nazis, and some of whose detachments participated in ethnic cleansing against Jews, Poles and Russians. That symbolism sticks in my gullet; perhaps it’s my Jewish family background. (I felt even sicker in 2010, when the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, pinned a medal on the grandson of UPA leader Stepan Bandera, saying, in effect, “screw any discussion of history among Ukrainians, let’s appeal to the crudest nationalist sentiments”.) Socialists need to get a historical handle on Ukrainian nationalism. But in order to do so, in my view, we need first to filter out the heavy legacy of Soviet ideology, which still corrodes the 21st century labour movement. That ideology cast the tyrannical Stalinist dictatorship, which in 1932-33 presided over a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, as “socialist”, and all Ukrainian nationalists – whether or not they had any connection with UPA or sympathy for its wartime dealings with the Nazis – as “fascists”. All this is behind some of the stereotypes. When Yanukovich said he was overthrown by a “fascist coup”, he might even have believed it. In terms of analysis, surely we can do better. (clip) _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
